easy13wayout

Everyone keeps saying how "quirky" reedies can be and I wanted to know what they mean by it. What makes reed students quirky? Is it the whole school or just people's stereotypes of it?

Hindoo

I really hope someone from Reed responds to this. I loved everything I read about Reed, but my daughter interpreted it differently. She perceived Reed as a high academic school full of pot-smoking, driven eccentrics. I told her she was out of her mind. Who was right?

schismmanifesto

Reed students love to smoke the reefer, thats no joke. Its practically like the need for water to any other person, if you go to reed 9 out of 10 people you meet will be a stoner.... a damn smart, creative, liberal, awesome stoner nevertheless..haha

tennisdude

Quirky meaning, individualistic and off beat. People like doing random stuff, I guess you could say. There are many-a eccentric interest. It's kind of cool.

It is a high academic school, filled with a student body that uses pot recreationally (although I wouldn't say 9/10 use pot, you can view 'pluaralistic ignorance' for the data on that).

Reedies also enjoy hydrating themselves for survival. It's one of our favorite pastimes, as a college. Smoking weed doesn't even come close.

laughable

I must respectfully disagree with tennisdude. I would wager liquor is a distant second to recreational marijuana use, by many metrics (volume of material consumed, cost of material consumed, absolute number of students reporting consumption in the last month or more, and ratio of students who report consumption to those who did not). The demographics may have shifted somewhat to include more cloistered students than in semesters past (Hark, olde reed!), but the beautiful pot of the pac nw is well-known to 93% of students I have known in four years.

Hindoo: you are both right.

I personally hate the word "quirky" as a descriptor, not merely because of its vagueness but also because it reminds me of PeeWee's Playhouse. My substitute is "poorly restrained, yet highly-functional madness". Sill vague, but with a positive bent.

Independent thought should not be confused with a quirk.

TrinSF

easy13wayout: In our household, we have a saying, "Quirky is not a competive sport." It sometimes feels like my children are trying to best themselves, though. So, yes, I definitely would call my Reedie quirky (though my other child is definitely *far* quirkier).

Things I consider quirky about him: his adoration of Freud, semi-serious spiritual connection to Pochacco, aversion to touching raw meat, and use of odd idioms, slang, and turns of phrase unique to our family, among other things.

If you're asking if by "quirky", I mean "uses drugs" or "is very studious", well, no, that's not what I mean. A quirk is "a strange attitude or habit". Pretty much everyone in my family has strange attitudes and habits. If my son went to many other schools, his roommate would probably describe him as "very strange", but at Reed, he's just another freshman.